Study

Is law like love, as W.H. Auden famously suggested? This reading groups wants to explore relations between law and love: is love anathema to law? is it its necessary foundation? Can the law incorporate love? What do we mean by love, what do we mean by law? In other words, this is not a class about the regulation of love or sexuality, it is a class about relations between two important things in our lives. We may look at the role of love in commercial law, we may look at Christian love as an idea underlying civil disobedience in Gandhi and King, we may look at truth and reconciliation commissions as potential expressions of love, we may look at feminist approaches to law that are based on ideas of love and care, we may look at the idea of love for the law (just look at Psalm 119:97ff). I have ideas, but I also look forward to ideas coming from students.

We will have five class sessions at mutually arranged times, in which we will discuss readings on these or other topics. Students will be expect to have read the assigned texts, have responded to them in brief (2-3 page) reaction papers, and to discuss them.

Spring 2019

Course Number	Course Credits	Evaluation Method	Instructor
611.18	Course Credits 1	Reflective Writing Class participation	Ralf Michaels